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Kyp Durron
Kyp Durron was a legendary, yet maverick, unconventional and polarizing figure in Galactic history who served as a leading Jedi Master of the New Jedi Order. Born on the planet Deyer in 19 BBY, Durron was raised by his mother and father alongside his younger brother, Zeth Durron. In 4 BBY, the Galactic Empire invaded Deyer and it's capital city of Feiya was conquered quickly, causing its population to be rounded up for imprisonment. Incarcerated in the spice mines of Kessel by the Empire soon afterwards, Durron's deep anger against his imprisoners was easily exploited by the spirit of the Dark Lord Exar Kun, once Han Solo rescued the Force-sensitive and took him to Luke Skywalker's base on Yavin 4. Under Kun's guidance, Durron stole the Sun Crusher superweapon and embarked upon a vendetta, destroying several Imperial targets and unwittingly killing millions in the process. Only once Kun's influence had been banished did Durron begin a long quest for absolution which led him to become Skywalker’s most talented pupil and one of the first Jedi Master's of the New Jedi Order. Despite Durron's reformation, his desire to repent for his actions manifested itself in a high-profile campaign against smugglers in the Outer Rim Territories as part of a philosophy of direct action against those whom he perceived as wrong-doers. When the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong attacked the Galaxy in 25 ABY, Durron was one of the first to meet the threat, losing his former apprentice and many other fellow Jedi in the opening months of the war. His policy of aggressive action was enhanced in the face of the Yuuzhan Vong menace and Durron began leading like-minded Jedi to war, against the wishes of Skywalker. Following further losses, Durron briefly took Jaina Solo as his apprentice and was later reconciled with Skywalker following New Republic Chief of State Cal Omas' creation of the New Republic High Council, upon which both men had seats. Durron saw the war through to its conclusion and remained one of Skywalker's leading advisors. Biography Early life Kyp Durron was born in the year 19 BBY on the planet Deyer, a colony world in the Anoat system. Durron, who was an active child during his childhood, had a younger brother, Zeth, with whom he had a close relationship. As small boys, Kyp and his brother used to fish, swim and play in the lakes that covered the planet's surface and even once obtained a special worn stone from his homeworld's River of Light. Kyp, who was an intelligent youth, had dreams of attending Deyer's civil engineering school to help out in the running of the colony. Zeth, however, was six years younger than his brother and was content with his simple life on the waterworld. The Durron family lived in one of Deyer's many raft cities, which floated upon the lakes as the inhabitants fished and sold their produce through a co-operative system which brought the backwater colony a decent profit. While Durron's parents were not, as far as the young man knew, Force-users themselves, they were political opponents of the Galactic Empire, the authoritarian government that had come to power in 31 BBY following the dissolution of the Galactic Republic. Durron's parents believed that the Empire could be convinced that moderate action was preferable to oppressive governance and protested during the anniversary of the Ghorman Massacre. The Deyer colonists in general, however, even though they had modeled the charter of the fishing co-operative on the ideals of the obsolete Galactic Republic, were largely ignored by the Emperor while they experimented with civil liberties, due to planet's backwater status. Following events in 5 BBY, however, the political activism of the Deyer colonists could no longer be tolerated. In 4 BBY, the Imperials moved in on the colonies, putting an end to the co-operative and its liberal propensities. Deyer's raft cities were rapidly overwhelmed, its capital city of Feiya conquered and its population rounded up for imprisonment. One evening, Imperials melted down the door of the Durron family home. A captain read an arrest warrant accusing Kyp's parents of treason, before stunning them with blasters. When Kyp, who was fourteen at the time, attempted to protect his mother and father, he too was stunned. Zeth was eight years old at the time of the attack. The four family members were then taken into Imperial custody. While Zeth was taken to the Imperial training center on Carida to be indoctrinated and trained as a stormtrooper, Kyp was incarcerated alongside his parents in the spice mines of Kessel, sentenced to hard labor. From prison to power Incarceration and tutelage The spice mines of Kessel were a dangerous and inhospitable environment. Working in complete darkness, Durron and the thousands of other prisoners were forced to travel deep into subterranean tunnels in order to extract glitterstim, a euphoria-inducing drug activated by light. On the surface, Kessel's weak atmosphere ensured that the Human miners had to wear breath masks, precluding escape attempts. The mines themselves contained mysteries; throughout the course of his long incarceration in the mines, Durron and other prisoners observed bogeys, rare glowing balls of energy that drifted through the tunnels and fed on the glitterstim in the mines. Many were superstitious and frightened by the bogeys. For a time, Durron believed that the Imperials would return and take him to Carida to serve as a stormtrooper but the Galactic Empire never showed an interest in him following his original arrest. After 1 BBY, a prison revolt took place, and Moruth Doole, a corrupt Rybet administrator, and his right-hand man Arb Skynxnex, staged a coup and wrested power from the Imperial warden. In the chaos, Durron's elderly parents found themselves on the wrong side and smugglers and criminals executed Durron's mother and father. Several months after Doole's coup, the young Human made the acquaintance of a wizened elderly woman, who was seemingly in hiding and possessed a guilty and furtive demeanour and who identified herself as Vima Daboda. Durron was skeptical of the old woman and her ramblings, but nevertheless, as she explained to him that he had the ability to manipulate a pervasive energy field known as the Force, Durron listened to the brief lessons taught to him by the crone. The young man began to use the Force in rudimentary ways, deploying mind tricks and taking advantage of the precognitive powers which his abilities afforded him. In one of Durron's last lessons with Vima, the old woman disclosed that he possessed tremendous potential in the Force and that he would be able to perform superhuman feats. Sometime in 2 ABY, the Imperials came to haul Daboda away and Durron was deprived of his teacher. Despite his unexplained abilities and the advantages which they gave him, Durron remained uncertain and confused by the Force and continued to wonder whether Daboda had simply been superstitious and insane. The following year, the Kessel prison was visited by Ysanne Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence. Isard was there as part of an investigation and would briefly take command of Kessel and subjugate many of the prisoners to painful interrogation: one of them being Durron himself. The Imperial Director found herself attracted to the prisoner, however, and offered Durron special treatment in exchange for sexual favors as well as his assistance in her investigation. At another point during his stay, Durron began participating in boxing tournaments in which he was quite successful. In the year of 4 ABY, Durron met a new voluntary doctor-in-training at the facility named Sofia Warka after she treated his wounds from one such boxing fight. The two grew close and began an affair in secret, ever fearful of what might happen if discovered by the warden. The two planned on marrying once Durron could find a way to escape the prison, but Warka was forced to flee before their plans were able to come to fruition. The young woman was however with child when she left the spice mines and eventually gave birth to his first son, Bailian. Flight from Kessel just prior to escaping]] It was one black day in the mines, sometime in 10 ABY, that Kyp Durron met a Corellian and a Wookiee who would change his life forever. Durron noticed two new captives one day as the descent into the mines began. Intrigued by the prospect of something new from above ground, the young Human clambered his way across the mine carts in pitch darkness, using a mind trick to distract a guard as he did so, before seating himself next to the new arrivals. Durron introduced himself and talked of his past. The Human, Han Solo, informed him of the news in the galaxy; Durron was happy to hear that the Emperor had been defeated six years previously.Star Wars: Jedi Search Solo also introduced his Wookiee partner, Chewbacca, with whom he had come to Kessel as an ambassador from the New Republic, the fledgling galactic government based on Coruscant. Solo revealed that they had been incarcerated due to Moruth Doole's suspicions of their purpose on Kessel. As the day wore on, Durron acted as the guide for the Human male and the Wookiee, helping them orientate themselves to their new surroundings. Once they arrived at a glitterstim fault, Durron taught his new companions how to sort through the rocks to find the spice and worked alongside them for a long time in the darkness. Later, when a bogey moved through the area, the guard grew frightened and called an end to the shift. The workers returned to the lit sections of the mining complex and Durron introduced himself to Solo and Chewbacca under the artificial light. Over the next days, Durron formed a closer bond with Solo and Chewbacca. After one shift, when an irate Solo threw a punch at one of the guards and started a small-scale riot in the muster room, Durron joined in the fight. Boss Roke shortly restored order; the workers were taken to their bunks and forced to go to sleep once Roke turned on the sleep-generating field. Due to their role in the riot, Solo and Chewbacca were obvious choices for a small team of prisoners that would descend into the lower tunnels, where more prisoners had recently gone missing, with Boss Roke the next day. Durron volunteered to accompany Solo, knowing the older man had something in mind. Roke selected the prisoner Clorr and another guard to fill out the team before the small group descended into the lower tunnels. Solo divulged that he believed that prisoners were not being killed, but were rather escaping, locating new tunnels to the surface. The Corellian felt that if Roke and his guard could be overpowered, they could all flee the spice mines together. Boss Roke took the mine cart deep into the tunnels before ushering the small groups out of the vehicle and taking spice readings. As Roke had suspected, the tunnels were full of glitterstim deposits; the boss led Durron and the others deeper, until Clorr, who was at the front of the group, was suddenly whisked away into the darkness by a massive unseen creature. Moments later, Roke was grabbed. Solo, Durron and Chewbacca ran away from the mysterious creature as it began its pursuit. Solo was able to grab the infrared goggles from the last guard and observe as a giant energy spider impaled the man with razor sharp legs and fed on his body heat. Durron and Chewbacca raced to the mine cart and powered it up. Once Solo was aboard, with the energy spider in close pursuit, the three prisoners took the mine cart at speed back up on the only possible course; the muster room. Durron proposed putting the mine cart on manual control and finding their own escape route but Solo, terrified by the thought of more energy spiders, rejected the idea. On arrival in the muster room, Durron and his companions opened the door to find Arb Skynxnex waiting to execute Solo and Chewbacca. The three prisoners were forced to flee back to the mine cart and head back into the tunnels with Skynxnex and more guards in close pursuit. In their slower mine cart, made up of three carriages, Durron and his companions lost ground to their pursuit and Skynxnex began firing upon them from an individual mine cart at long range. Unknowingly relying on the Force to enhance his reaction times, Durron managed to swerve the mine cart manually out of a collision and avoid blaster fire from Skynxnex. When he realized, however, that the automatically inputted course was taking them back down to the lair of the energy spider, Durron took manual control of the mine cart, relying on his unusually enhanced senses to survive. When another bogey moved through an opening in the tunnel wall made by a stray blaster shot from Skynxnex, Durron followed it, taking the mine cart into what was, unbeknownst to him, the energy spider's lair. Although Durron managed to evade the creature, Skynxnex drove his mine cart straight into it by accident and was killed. Solo directed the Human to a new passage, which led them to the artificial upper tunnels. Once they burst out onto the brightly lit surface of Kessel, Solo took the controls. The next step was to find a starship and flee the planet. Durron directed Solo toward an atmospheric factory where they spotted a pair of supply shuttles. While Durron kept watch, Solo and Chewbacca attempted to gain entry into one of the shuttles but the trio were forced to switch to the second shuttle, a 500-X model, once Solo tripped the automatic lockout systems. Durron watched nervously as a team of guards on a routine patrol arrived and noticed the damage to the first shuttle. As the alarm was triggered and guards rushed out to prevent their escape, Solo piloted the shuttle away from the factory. Moruth Doole contacted the trio of escapees through the communications system and informed them that their escape was doomed. The entire Kessel fleet, garrisoned on Kessel's lone moon, was scrambled to intercept them. Just as the 500-X shuttle neared the edge of Kessel's weak atmosphere, Durron received a premonition in the Force and slammed on the starship's acceleration. Durron had saved himself and his new companions from death by a fractional distance, as moments later, Kessel's planetary shield was powered up. Despite the close call, the trio was still in danger. Doole's forces jammed the shuttle's communications and pursued the fleeing starship. Solo pumped all power into the vessel's shields, which failed to offer much protection. Desperate but aware that his powers could give them a chance at survival, Durron told Solo to fly the shuttle into the Maw. The Corellian was deeply skeptical but when Durron divulged the knowledge of his tutelage under Vima Daboda, whom Solo had in fact met previously, he decided to trust in Durron's abilities. Shunting all power to the engines, Solo piloted the shuttle into the Maw at great speed. The Kessel fleet abandoned pursuit on the edge of the cluster of black holes. Durron took the controls from the nervous Corellian and closed his eyes, allowing the Force to guide the shuttle and its crew to safety. For a long period of time, in silence, with the black holes on all sides, Durron flew the shuttle toward the area of gravitational calm in the center of the cluster. By the time the journey finished, Durron was exhausted from the exertion of his abilities and encouraged a period of recuperation while they repaired the shuttle in the comparative safety of the region. On arrival in the center of the cluster, however, the trio of escapees discovered a fresh danger. Four ''Imperial I''-class Star Destroyers were in orbit around a habitational complex built into a cluster of asteroids in the center of the region. Personality and traits Regarded as a maverick by his peers, Kyp Durron was a wise and faithful, but unorthodox member of the New Jedi Order. Durron rigorously taught his students to question authority through which passed a rebellious streak, making them a difficulty in the eyes of the Jedi Council. A distinguished and adept Jedi warrior, Kyp Durron reflected strength and wisdom. He was also open about his opinions to the point of near-tactlessness, and was once referred as a "solitary and secretive rogue." While some Jedi focused on meditation to try to understand the future, Durron believed it better to trust one's instincts and preferred living in the moment. He therefore disagreed with the notion of putting concentration into worrying about the future. Durron's commitment to studying the galaxy and interacting with it would prove far-reaching, having a great impact on Owen Kenobi, Jax Pavan, his own sons Bailian and Asher, Jaina Solo, as well as his friend Luke Skywalker. He was also a great teacher and mentor, and taught Kenobi the Nelvaanian tongue on their journeys across the galaxy, as well as others. Durron also cared for and loved his children very much, though he would often only help lead them in the right direction to decipher a particular situation or problem instead of outright telling them where to go, thus, in a sense, giving them a challenge to complete without all the clues. From Kyp's point of view, these, at times, harsh lessons gave them much needed knowledge and experience to prepare for any possibility that they could and most likely would face in their lives. The Jedi Master seemed much younger than his age and had a penetrating gaze. He also had a subtle attention to detail, seen as he could sense mood changes in the people around him and was quite adept at hiding his emotions from other individuals, even other Jedi. His teachers were often perplexed by his ability to do this even when Durron was only an Initiate. Durron considered caring for one's physical appearance a futility. However, his looks and behavior were not unanimously approved within the Jedi Order. Although he admittedly revered his colleague, Jedi Master Tholme once commented that Kyp looked neglected "like a Bantha" and exhaled a foul body odor reminiscent of that of a Rodian. Tholme also criticized Durron for taking "every word" from his own mouth as a pearl of wisdom. Relationships Romances Throughout his lifetime, Kyp Durron had several romantic relationships. Sofia Warka Helena Kort Celia Dunne Pamela Dunne Katherine Solusar Regina Kenobi Jaina Solo Regina Chilcott Powers and abilities Force powers Kyp Durron considered himself to be more powerful than Luke Skywalker, who was himself the son of Jedi legend, Anakin Skywalker.Star Wars: Rebel Dream The fallen Jedi Knight Vima Daboda recognized the young Force-sensitive's vast potential in the spice mines of Kessel and, when Luke Skywalker tested Durron's power in 11 ABY, he was stunned by the scale of his natural affinity for the Force, as it was unlike anything he had witnessed since training under his own teachers, Yoda and Ben Kenobi. Durron did not believe his parents to have been Force-sensitive and was surprised to learn of his abilities. Within a week of intensive training, Durron had surpassed all other trainees at the Jedi Praxeum. By 13 ABY, Skywalker perceived Durron to be "frighteningly powerful" and regarded him as his prize student. Under Vima Daboda's tutelage, Durron learned the rudiments of the Force. He became proficient in the employment of mind tricks and practiced the abilities taught to him by the old Jedi after she was taken away, although Durron did not understand their provenance or science. The Deyer native mostly reacted without understanding during this period and was unable to utilize his powers at will. Even untrained, however, Durron had strong powers of precognition. These gave him fast reaction times, enabling him to avoid death in the Kessel spice mines and over the surface of the planet, when he had a premonition of the activation of Kessel's planetary shields. This ability also enabled Durron to navigate his way through the dark spice tunnels and the Maw, the latter of which was a feat mastered only by a handful of other Jedi. As Durron began developing his abilities, he rapidly gained mastery over many aspects of the Force. The power of telekinesis was picked up by Durron early on in his training, although the Deyer native had already seen fractional success with the ability when he was incarcerated aboard the Gorgon in 11 ABY. Following his week of intensive training at the Jedi Praxeum, Durron was capable of advanced feats of telekinesis. Contrary to popular belief, the Deyer native did not tear the Sun Crusher out of the heart of Yavin with telekinesis alone, although Durron did slow the superweapon's descent as it approached the Great Temple. In later years, Durron began utilizing telekinesis in his creation of shadow bombs, hurling proton torpedoes with great speed toward Yuuzhan Vong starships during the Yuuzhan Vong War. During the fall of Coruscant, Durron also made use of a destroyed freighter as a telekinetic weapon despite its large size. The dark-haired Jedi was also able to use telekinesis on other Force-sensitives with success, such as when he hurled fellow Jedi Master Corran Horn across a hangar in 36 ABY.Star Wars: The Unseen Queen Testament to his above-average abilites, Kyp was one of the only Jedi outside of the Skywalker/Solo families considered by Dantius Palpatine as a candidate to join the ranks of his many Dark Jedi. However, he was passed over due to his unpredictable and stubborn nature. Lightsaber skills In addition to his Force powers, Kyp Durron was one of the finest swordsman in the New Jedi Order, having frequent sparring experience with many of his equally skilled contemporaries, notably Luke Skywalker, Corran Horn and Mace Windu. Durron was a master of the fifth form of lightsaber combat. In combat, his bladework was wide and powerful, marked by heavy, two-handed slashes, and sudden flourishes to cover his flanks. Durron's mastery of form five allowed him to easily defeat blaster wielding opponents despite the forms weakness to blaster fire. Rather than focus on an overall strategy, Durron preferred to adjust his technique based on the needs of the moment. Other abilities Durron had a vast knowledge of the architecture of many capital ships and large transports, and understood their abilities and vulnerable points, including the engineering and structure of the Empire's Star Destroyers and the Trade Federation's landing craft. His linguistic capabilities were also notable. Appearances *Star Wars: Jedi Search *Star Wars: Dark Apprentice }} Notes and references Category:Males Category:Humans Category:Gray Jedi Category:Deities Category:Inhabitants of Coruscant Category:Jedi Masters of the New Jedi Order Category:New Republic individuals Category:Rebel Alliance members Category:Rebel Jedi Category:Jedi Council members of the New Jedi Order Category:Fallen Jedi Category:Force-sensitives Category:Dark Lords Category:Inhabitants of Deyer Category:Jedi instructors Category:Lightsaber combat instructors Category:New Republic Starfighter Corps personnel Category:Durron family Category:Boxers Category:Inhabitants of Kessel Category:Kenobi family Category:Mechanics Category:Kyp's Dozen personnel